Gateway

A lot of the 44/8 address space is interconnected via gateways. These are IPENCAP (IP Protocol Number 4) encapsulated tunnels that carry the 44/8 address space allocated to a particular region or end user. There exists a database of all the gateways public IP addresses and the subnets they service on the portal. This database is used to dynamically generate gateway information via modified RIP advertisements. This database also generates a file called encap.txt which is basically a routing table that specifies which subnets can be reached via which gateway.

In order to keep this database up to date, everyone that operates a gateway must register on the portal and have their gateway assigned to their account.

As the portal only went live recently, we are in a transition phase, where all the old gateway entries that existed have been copied into the new database and are awaiting their "owners" to claim them. After a suitable period of time has elapsed, about a year, any unclaimed gateways will be removed from the system, thus ensuring that the database is as up to date and as accurate as possible. It is therefore important to register and claim your gateway asap!